Sharks’ three top scorers — Thornton-Marleau-Heatley — starting on same line against Flyers

Based on the energy and scoring chances he saw in the Nashville game, Todd McLellan does plan to begin tonight’s game against the Flyers with Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley on the same line.

That said, don’t blink or you might miss what few shifts the three may have together.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to finish the first period that way. We’ll see what they get done,” McLellan said. “And as much as it is them creating and contributing, we also have to look at what the other lines are doing against some of their match-ups. . . . Things may be going great for (the Thornton line), but if it’s not going good for the other three lines, we can’t leave them out in the dark and have a one line game.

“And then vise versa, if it’s not going good for three of our top players — they’re not creating anything, they’re playing more in their own zone — it wouldn’t be right to continue that.”

By moving Marleau to the top line, it also slides Joe Pavelski back into the center slot — also part of the plan now that he’s played six games since returning from his foot injury.

“I would like to see Joe skate more now. We protected him a little more there as a winger for the first little bit,” McLellan said, “but I think it’s time now that he gets his legs underneath him and he starts staking a little bit more. He’ll have to do that in the middle.”

As expected, the Sharks did recall Benn Ferriero, Jamie McGinn and Logan Couture from Worcester on Thursday after all three had played in Worcester’s 5-3 loss to Portland on Wednesday night. Which means tonight’s lines should be:

****Speaking of Worcester, Torrey Mitchell has two assists and eight penalty minutes in his four games played. He’s also a minus-2. His two-week conditioning assignment is due to end Tuesday.

****The earlier match-up between the Sharks and Flyers ended up as a 4-1 Sharks victory on Oct. 25 with each team’s back-up goalie in the nets. Tonight it’ll be the starters — Evgeni Nabokov and Ray Emery.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.